Alone
by Noxid Anamchara
Summary: The group comes back from the rescue at Woodbury - without Daryl. And Carol shoulders on, in the wake of her despair.


**Nox: **Just a little one-shot for the Carol fan in me. And the _Caryl_er in me as well. Also, check out my companion piece to this. Daryl's thoughts about leaving the group, titled Blood.

**Disclaimer**: The Walking Dead belongs to Kirkman and AMC. I borrowed things.

* * *

Alone

"Where's Daryl?"

He wasn't in the car. _He wasn't in the car_. That was all she could think. Was he dead? Did he get left behind? Did something happen? Were there complications with…

She clenched her stomach, trying to hold herself up. The possibility that he'd not _come back_ was too much to bear. She felt her heart jerk in her chest. And his face when those words ripped passed her lips cut off the oxygen she'd been breathing. The fact that she even had to ask was more than enough. He should have been there. Should have come back. Should be _alive_.

But he was gone.

"It's alright," Rick said, gripping her shoulder tightly.

To hell if it was alright. Daryl _wasn't here_. She wasn't looking at _his _face, seeing _his_ reassurances, knowing if everything had gone okay with Merle because _he _was telling her.

"He's alive." She breathed a sigh of relief but the fact still remained. He was gone. Not in the car. _Not here._

"We ran into his brother." His brother.

_Merle_.

The realization of that one statement made it all clear. She looked away, as the anger and the pain surfaced too quickly. She should have _known_ that if it came down to the group or Merle he would have chosen Merle, without _any_ hesitation.

"They went off." She was confused, disoriented. She was still processing the fact that Daryl and Merle were both _alive, _but not _here. _

"They left?" Rick looked as if he didn't know what to do, what to say, and just gave up trying. Just nodded in response.

"Daryl left?" Without saying goodbye? Without coming back and letting the rest of the group know? Without telling _her_?

"He-he's gone?" She didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to think of the idea of him never coming back. Of never seeing his face. Of never watching those hunched, strong shoulders, with the crossbow slung over them, follow Rick into whatever dangers he thought necessary. Because he wanted to _protect _them.

She could see Rick, flounder for the right words to say. But it didn't matter. Daryl was gone.

"Is he coming back?" She felt the breathe catch in her throat. She knew it was stupid to ask, but…but it hurt to think that he _never would_. That whatever they _had _was just _gone_.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't want that. Didn't want his sympathy. She wanted Daryl. Wanted him back with the group. Wanted to see his face. Wanted to know he was back where he _belonged_.

"Hey," he called as she pulled away, feeling like the walls were caving in.

"Gone?" She echoed, her voice wavering. She didn't want to sound weak, not after everything she'd done to grow over the past year. She was stronger than this, stronger than everyone thought she was.

But it _hurt_ knowing that he was never coming back.

Rick's hand on the back on her neck held her down, a weight that was surprisingly comforting.

"And Oscar," Carl inquired. She searched Rick's face, waiting for the answer. She hadn't even thought about him, didn't even notice. She felt the guilt swallow her up, for not even _noticing_ that Oscar wasn't even there.

Rick shook his head, pulled Carl closer. "No," he said gravely. Another one – gone.

He pulled her against him, his chest warm and comforting, solid. And she knew it should have been obvious who Daryl's choice was in the end. Because Rick knew that this is what it would have come down to. He knew, hadn't he.

It was never going to be them. It had _never_ been them from the beginning.

It had never been _her_.

She felt her shoulders stiffen, even as Rick kept his hand across her back.

Daryl just _left_.

Of course he did. Because that's what Dixons did. Just left. Left without saying goodbye. Left without telling the rest of the group where they might be going. If they might ever see each other again.

If they even cared what the _group_ thought of his going.

And then to watch Hershel greet Maggie, so _lovingly_, burned her heart. She was happy for them, that she'd come back, but that didn't mean it still didn't _hurt_.

"Go on," he said. She didn't want to leave, to go inside where there wouldn't _be_ any Daryl. But she didn't want to sit out there and wait, just hoping for him to appear either.

Because he wasn't coming back.

And now she was alone. _Again_.

Left to care for the group, for people who _did _need her, but who didn't notice her like he did.

Never like he did.

So it was no wonder she found her way to his perch. The only place left that reminded her of him. The only thing she had left of him. What was she to do, now that he wasn't here? She tossed her rifle down in anger, picking up some things in preparation for Jude - the empty mail bin, small towels, pieces of blankets that had been cut up.

Was she supposed to wallow in self-pity because a man hadn't chosen her over his family?

How pitiful.

She wasn't weak. She may be heartbroken inside, feeling the loss of someone who had _meant _something to her. But that didn't mean she stopped _living_. She'd done that once, when she lost Sophia. She wouldn't ever do that again. She was stronger now.

She curled the anger, and the pain inside of her, hiding it away as Beth started toward her with Jude in her arms.

"You got a knack for that," she called to Beth, who slowly walked up the steps to the perch. She took the old mail bin, and decided that instead of wallowing in her own damn pity she would put her sadness to use.

Distract herself.

And it was about time that Jude got a proper bed. Or as proper as you could get in the end of the world.

"Just tryin' to do my part," she said. Beth was a good girl, and had been working hard lately to make herself useful. And that was with Jude. It was a great help, especially when they so short on hands, and new people hangin' around.

"Sophia used to wake the neighbors. Three a.m. like clockwork." Sophia used to keep Ed up at night too, pissing him off. He'd throw a fit, beat _her_ for it. But she didn't say that part. Just kept on fitting the mail bin with the odd ended blankets and parts, trying to soften it up as best she could.

"Ed stayed at a friend's, most nights, till she calmed down." He stayed with those friends _after _he beat on her first.

"I always wanted a child," she said sweetly. And Carol thought that was a fine sentiment, but for one so young, a little far-fetched.

"She wouldn't have made it if Daryl wouldn't 'ave been here."

Her hands stopped moving for a fraction of a second, the blankets still in her hands.

If Daryl hadn't been here, so many things wouldn't have happened. No one would have gone looking for Sophia as passionately as he did. No one would have given her as much hope as he did. No one would have taken the time to understand her like he did. And no one would have come looking for her like he did.

She wouldn't be here, without Daryl.

"He couldn't stand to lose anyone else."

But that was just like Daryl wasn't it? Can't let nothing go. Can't let the past be. Even when it's someone who's treated you like dirt your entire life, he'd still be with them, till the end.

"Sounds like him," she muttered.

"I don't see why he had to leave. Merle sounds like a jerk." And wasn't that the truth. Wasn't that the problem.

And didn't she understand that? Didn't matter what they did to you, how they treated you, what they said. All that mattered was that they were family, and it _mattered to you_.

"Men like Merle get into your head. Make you feel like you deserve the abuse." She knew that. Ed had her believing she deserved it for the past twenty-three years of their life together. It wasn't until the damn apocalypse that she'd finally gotten free of him, and that wasn't even of her own choice.

"Even for Daryl?" She sighed. More so for Daryl, she suspected. Merle was family. Merle was _blood_ as Daryl would say it. They'd lived their _entire_ life, intertwined with each other, feeding off of each other, _breathing _with each other. They were like one person. Daryl hadn't yet figured out how to function, to be _him_ without Merle yet.

But that wasn't something for her to say. That was a Daryl she only knew.

"I'm hardly the woman I was a year ago, but if Ed walked through that door right now, breathing and told me to go with him, I'd like to think I'd tell him to go to hell." She hoped she would anyway. She'd learned so much from these people, from_ Daryl_, and it was only thanks to them that she learned to stand up for herself. To be strong.

She suddenly wished she could tell him that now. How much she owed him, for everything he had ever done for her.

"You would." She liked Beth's confidence in her, but it didn't feel the same.

"It doesn't matter." Doesn't matter anymore because Ed's dead. Doesn't matter anymore because Daryl is _gone_. Gone with Merle and isn't coming back unless he can find the strength to say _goodbye. _

"We're weak without him." She felt her chest puff out, like a ruffling of the feathers. They weren't weak. Just because Daryl was gone, didn't mean anything. She may have wanted him back just as much, if not _more_, than the others but that didn't mean they were weak.

"We'll get through this too." Because they had too. And it didn't matter what they wanted anyway. Daryl had made his choice. And that choice was to be with Merle. If that was what he wanted, she would _have _to be okay with that. No matter how much her heart ached, no matter how much she wanted him to come back.

"Tyreese and his friends seem capable." And they did, even if she didn't trust them completely. That would take time of course. But given that time, they could become valuable members.

Protectors.

Not ever the same like Daryl, but she wouldn't deny that they needed people now. They needed the strength.

"I'm pissed at him for leaving." And she felt the breath leave her at Beth's heated admission. Because, in the end, she felt the same. She was pissed. But she also _understood_. Understood better than any of the others. Daryl had to choose Merle. There wasn't a thought, wouldn't be any doubt. Even if the group had put up a fight to keep him.

Because she knew they couldn't keep Merle anyway. Not after the choices he'd made. She knew they couldn't, not after she'd seen how Glenn looked, how Maggie looked.

So while they all must have sat there and told Daryl to choose _them_, they weren't even thinking of _him_. Not his family.

And Daryl _had _to choose Merle. He was blood. He was family. He was his brother.

"Don't be," she said, trying to find the best way to tell Beth that. Because how would any of them understand that? "Daryl has his code." And she loved that about him. Loved that he stayed true to his character, even if it made the people closest to him, _mad _at him.

She didn't ever want that to change about him.

"This world needs men like that."

She would miss him, with all her heart. And she hoped that Merle, somehow, _someway_, knew just what his brother had given up.

Because, in a twisted way, Daryl loved Merle. And she hoped he earned that.

Because he'd left her alone. And she would find a way to be okay with that, for Daryl.

* * *

_So, didn't you find love or salvation in what they do. A heart is built of gold, the fairies they are too. It's in the hands you hold._


End file.
